I must be a wimp. I'm planting only 14 tomato plants, some varieties with two plants, others with just one for a test run. I'm wanting to get away from hybrids if I can find OPs and heirlooms that are as good or better taste- and production-wise. I have hopes this year...

OTOH, I'm planting lots of pole beans and will freeze many of them as well as the tomatoes. I also plant heat-tolerant lettuce and spinach in hopes that we can have fresh salads through the spring and summer. That's worked well in years past.

I will be starting 130 for my hoop building. Then I will start 200+ for my hanging baskets. Then another 40-50 cherry tomatoes for another hoop building. Finally another 200-250 plants to sell.

Then 120+ peppers for hoop buildings, and another 150 for outside and 150-200 for sale.

In addition to broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, cucumbers, lettuce plugs, spinach plugs for early production.

All to be started this weekend. It will be busy! Ok, I am not starting all of them this weekend, just the early stuff.

Jay

Way too many, maybe 110. I'll use about 20-25 of those. The rest will be given out to friends and familia.

Damon

Now, TOTAL seedlings of all flowers and veggies? I won't add them up because then I'll realize just how far over the edge I've gone...:(

Come over to Winter Sowing BigDaddy, we'll help you take the plunge.

lol, I have 35 tomato plants so far, some growing for almost a month now. That's 7 varieties. There are 1 or 2 more at least I want to start. I'll be growing about 11 varieties of peppers, then some fruits, alliums, dwarf trees, berries, Kieria Japonica, Nasturtiums, UT Orange Cannas, succulents, cacti, Marigolds, About 5 Red Dragon Flower plants, some Herbs, a few African Violets, a "Wandering Jew", Bee Balm, Careopteris, Aloe, Grape Hyacinth, 3 kinds of Sedums & about 5 other plants i'm forgetting...lol! =)

- Steve

i have 96 plants up representing 6 different varities
all are dark types kinda cought the dark bug last couple yrs
anyway i will keep 30 in my mater patch and share the others with friends and fellow gardeners in my area.

450+ tomatoes, 180 peppers, 108 herbs (basil, cilantro, oregano), 24 cotton, 60 peanuts, 18 coffee, 18 cane sugar, 18 Jicama, 18 Rice plus some cabbage, eggplant, cucumber, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, squash and a few others. The rest I will directly.

Mike

Oh yea, all mine will be done on a 1/16th acre lot, some of which is taken up by a huge pine tree, so no matter how hard y'all try, you can't one up me! lol =)

Between 300-350 tomatoes for sale, and around 50 for myself and family.

EG

I have about 400 tomatoes plus 600 other seedlings up about an inch now. I plan to give most away to friends etc.

engineer: How do you sell them? Do you take them to a local farmer's market or just sell them on the side of the street? I was thinking about selling either some mater plants or tomatoes themselves or both.

- Steve

None yet - way too early here but did get 100 pepper plants started yesterday and today.

We use plug trays for tomatoes - 288 each tray - 5-6 trays usually. Will likely do our usual 100-130 or so for us assuming some won't make it and the usual 500-600 for sales.

Dave

Steve - I sell most of mine at work, but also some as well to members of my father's church, friends, etc. The best thing i've done is to make a 3 ring binder with photos and descriptions of the varieties offered, and letting people choose how many of each to order. Based on the orders submitted, I know how many seeds of each kind to start. My price is $1 each - sold as individual cells. I had one lady order 30.....

EG

Probably somewhere around 120 tomato seedlings, 34-35 of which I will plant in my garden, or in pots. The rest I will give away...as long as they thrive. That is why I grow more than I need....just in case , because you just never know what could happen to your seedlings between sprouting and hardening off.

Then there are all the other fruits, veggies and herbs. Life can be so good :)

Donna

engineeredgarden, how big are your plants when you sell them for 1.00.

Dale

I seeded about 30 different varieties among 400 seedlings. I sell some at our local farmers market, give some away, and grow the rest to also sell at market and give to the fam. For you marketers out there. Stick to the big names, the only heirloom I can get my customers to buy is Brandywine. Seems to be the only variety that has seeped through into the general gardening group-think.

thepodpiper - I sell them at that price when they are 6 weeks old, and about 6" tall.

EG

Yea, let's do it! All tomatoes:

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- Steve

Here is a link that might be useful: Steve's Garden

24,000 tomato seedlings

I am starting two or three of the following.
Sun Gold
Amana Orange
Pineapple
Chocolate Cherry
Mountain Fresh

Presently I'm sitting on 23 varieties of seed. Present garden plan (subject to changes before "D-Day" (Mother's Day in these parts)is for three rows of 18. Of the 44, at least 16 will be "anchor" hybrids, the rest various heirlooms. I'm toying with attempting to grow enough extra to sell, hopefully to offset some garden costs, but the "best laid plans of mice and men..." We'll see.

PS - I did mean 54... my math's not as bad as my typing! Isn't aging grand?

I grew 50 seedlings this year, at least three of each variety. I ended up planting out 16. Except for a small "stash" to replace anything that dies early, I gave the rest away. Of the 16 I kept, there are 2 Break O'Day, 2 Moreton and 12 single varieties. I wanted to plant out even fewer varieties (same total, 16), but just couldn't force myself to do it. I wish I didn't have to limit myself so much this season, but I have to focus on my business more and gardening less.

If it is anything like last year, between 300 amd 400 tomatoes, and 75 - 100 peppers (maybe more peppers, I got some more seeds I haven't tried) and another 100 or so on eggplants (20), herbs and such.

Bets

Not many this year... I always plant 3 for every 1 plant I want in the garden. I cull the worst, keep the best, and give the middle plant away. I'll probably have 4 Opalkas again, and maybe 6 other varieties, so that makes only 30 seedlings. We're moving into a new house next week, so gardening will be rather limited this year. Next year I plan to grow at least 20 plants for myself, and will do some to sell if I can figure out a slick way to sell them.

Thanks to Trudi, I am starting 20 varieties this year. Half of them are my moms and will go in her garden and the other half will go in pots at my house (I have limited space). Some are 3 weeks old and some just sprouted. I'm hoping to sprout a couple more to give to friends. Hope I'm not too late.

Ania

timmy1, oh my goodness.

I'm going to try to start ten plants. Every year, I start too many, can't take care of them, and get mad at myself because I have a bunch of neglected plants instead of a few healthy ones. So I'm going to try really, really hard.

Timmy1, wow that is some operation you have there. From looking at the pictures tell me if I figured out how it works. You spread pelletized seed on the vacuum plate and spread it out and one seed, but sometimes two, get sucked up to each hole by the vacuum. Then you flip the plate over on top of a plug tray that has plugs on the same centers as the holes in the vacuum plate. Then you turn the vacuum off and the seeds fall onto the plugs. Then it looks like you cover them with a thin layer of what looks like pure vermiculite. Then you top water them with a mister nozzle.
Is there a machine for transferring the plugs to individual pots or is that done by hand, or do you just sell the plugs?
If hand transferred how many plugs can a worker do in an hour? What brand of potting soil do you use? Thanks for the pictures.

No pelitized seeds, Machine no likey!

All correct, tranplant by hand. I can plant (6) 288 trays per hour no problem.

Pro mix PGX for plugs

Pro mix BX for flats and pots

Quit it, Timmy!! I'm a recovering addict and you're acting as a trigger!! :-P

Hey guys do a search on Timmy1 and you can see plenty of pics of his setup. It is quite impressive.

Hey Timmy1, how long is your harvest ? (my guess is you are harvesting in June, July, Aug, Sept, Oct)

Timmy1, two other questions. How big are the plugs in inches, or in other words how far apart are the seedlings, and if two seeds happen to sprout in a plug do you pull out or kill one of the seedling or just let both of them grow together? Often times I see tomato plant pots with two plants in each in stores and I am guessing that some growers just let both seedlings grow. I thought the seeds were pelletized because they were green, but maybe that is some fungicide coating.

Timmy1, I understand you grow commercially. Can you share your business name/location so that we may visit and buy stuff ? We are in New Jersy and occassionally make it into Rhode Island.

Californian, They are 288's about 1/2"x1/2"x 1.5" deep

I split the doubles so there is only 1 per cell in 4 packs etc.

Redheads, No can do on the info, it's against site rules.

Sorry

Yea, Timmy's the real mater nut! lol...Lookin nice this year again, just like last year. =)

timml
do you get either of these with biofungaice?
Pro mix PGX for plugs
Pro mix BX for flats and pots
Dennis

timmyl
biofungacide

I usually grow 15 or so seedlings for myself and my parents (this year I'm also growing some for my girlfriend's dad).
I plant 5 to 10 seeds of one variety per gallon pot (older stock gets planted more heavily) and thin to the strongest seedling. With seeds being so inexpensive, why not select the strongest seedlings? Plus, with one strong seedling per gallon pot, there's no need for potting up and no root crowding. The method uses more potting soil, but the scale of my planting doesn't make this method cost prohibitive.

Timmy, if you send someone the info and they post it, it's not against the rules. Feel free to email it to me if you'd like-- there should be a link on my page.

Pro mix BX w/mycorise

Yea, these seed suppliers have a tendency to put treatment on most commercial seed. I don't understand why because very few growers are direct seeding tomatoes in the field anymore. Most germinate in ideal conditions that do not warrant the use of the fungicide. I also noticed untreated seed has better shelf life and higher overall germ%#'s.

"Advertising, in any form, is strictly forbidden in forum messages and on member pages. This does not mean that as a business owner you cannot use the forums or have a membership. It means you cannot use forum messages or your member pages as a means of advertising. Even our paying advertisers are not allowed to that.

If you have a business, mentioning the name, providing a link, giving the phone number, etc., are all forms of advertising. Linking to an informational page or image at your site where items are sold is an advertisement. Linking to a site that in turn links to your business is an advertisement. If you post such a message under a pseudonym, it is still an ad. If you link to it from your member pages, it is an ad. In sum, if at least part of the reason you are posting is to let people know about your business, it is an advertisement. This is exactly what our paying advertisers are trying to do: get people to their site or business."

I don't think you guy's/gal's want me banned from this site...

Yea, timmy is cool & his pics of millions of maters are beautiful. Let's not do anything to get him banned, ok? =)

- Steve

I'm not sure how many varieties yet (30?) but I generally plant five seeds of a variety in a 1"x2" cell, pot up at least three of them and eventually plant out two of each variety leaving one plant as a backup in case a chipmunk or deer gets a young plant.

timmy1 - that is truly a remarkable display you have there.

EG

hahaha, and here I was thinking that I was doing ok with 30 plants.

timmyl
OK - I try to get untreated seeds and use both biofungacide in pro-mix and add my own mychorriza with endo and exto

Do you sell plants - grow and sell maters - anything else ?

Can you at least say what state you are from?

Dennis

Wow wow wow. Makes my tiny hand-seeded Jiffy "greenhouse" cells look pretty wimpy! LOL

Anyway--I'm growing only 5 varieties of tomato this year, totaling about 10 plants (unless any extra seedlings look too beautiful to waste in which case it may be double that number, heheh). That's really all we need since my kids don't eat them (travesty!!) and I don't sell either plants or produce. Plus I don't have room for too many more maters if I want to grow other stuff, which I do! I'm growing all heirlooms again this year: Black Krim, Green Zebra, Supersteak, Big Rainbow and Brandywine. I may also end up with some sort of container tomato, largely as an ornamental near my pool (and because I love the scent of tomato foliage).

I start 3-4 seeds for each plant that I put out in the garden, so about 120 seedlings overall. I give the extras to friends and co-workers, many of whom have come to depend on me as their source of tomato plants.

Californian
Are you going to the Fullerton College (city college) tomato sale March 5,6 7th ? next weekend?
$2 per plant - add is on Craigslist in Orange County farm and garden

Dennis